Should illegal drugs be used in PTSD treatment?

War veterans are pushing for a trial of drugs like MDMA and LSD in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder amid warnings of a dramatic rise in the number of veterans suffering from the condition.

Transcript

icon-plusicon-minus

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The agony of post-traumatic stress is becoming a growing reality for hundreds of Australian soldiers returning from war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many are suffering from anxiety and depression, they're unable to work and are even at risk of taking their own lives.

Now, a radical new treatment is being proposed. Hallucinogenic drugs, including MDMA, sold on the street as ecstasy, have been successfully used in medical trials in the United States to treat post-traumatic stress. And there's a big push on for trials to begin in Australia.

But as Conor Duffy reports, unsurprisingly, there's resistance as well.

CONOR DUFFY, REPORTER: Retired Army major Steve McDonald knows all too well the horrors of war. He commanded an Australian infantry company during the brutal 1993 civil war in Somalia and his five-month stint the country descended into chaos left him severely scarred.

STEVE MCDONALD, RETIRED ARMY MAJOR: I saw a lot of people in extreme hardship and some of them close to death from starvation. I saw a small amount of conflict, people with gunshot wounds and those sorts of things. And the general atmosphere was often quite threatening because there was no identified enemies.

CONOR DUFFY: When Steve McDonald returned home, he set up a small business and tried to get on with his life. He suffered two breakdowns and eventually had to leave work on a veteran's pension.

STEVE MCDONALD: PTSD is often accompanied by depression, so I suffered from major depression and went through periods of being suicidal over a number of years.

CONOR DUFFY: A daily kung fu workout and strict exercise regime allow him to manage his condition today, but he believes something far more controversial, MDMA, also known as ecstasy, could be the best treatment for the thousands of Aussie troops with post-traumatic stress disorder.

STEVE MCDONALD: The initial research done in the USA has shown that a treatment program of 12 psychotherapy sessions with only two of those sessions involving the use of the drug MDMA can potentially cure PTSD.

CONOR DUFFY: In the early 1970s, the thousands of young people experimenting with LSD were too busy dancing to know scientists were quietly doing the same in labs. The hallucinogenic drugs were also powering research into everything from anxiety to autism until the war on drugs saw them banned. Now the tests are legal again and experiments are being run using MDMA and LSD.

ROCK DOBLIN, MULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSN FOR PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES: This is far from a fringe area. We've published three papers in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. We've presented to the Department of Defence, we've had meetings at the Pentagon.

CONOR DUFFY: American Iraq War veteran Tony Macie served for 15 months as a scout spotting improvised explosive devices. On his return, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and continually relived a truck bomb explosion that took the lives of two comrades.

TONY MACIE, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I was a mess. I had really no direction and I was on a bad road with prescription medication.

CONOR DUFFY: Traditional treatments failed and he was one of the first veterans to participate in a controversial new study using MDMA, known as ecstasy on the street. He took the drug twice during three months of psychotherapy. MDMA floods the brain with the neurotransmitter serotonin, creating an intense feeling of euphoria.

TONY MACIE: Gave me really peace of mind so I kinda had a focus again and wasn't so worried and concerned and living in the past. Now, after that I've done it, I don't regret anything about it. If anything, immediately after I did it, I wish it would be allowed for a lot of veterans with PTSD. I think it could make beyond a huge impact.

CONOR DUFFY: From his Boston home, Dr Rick Doblin bankrolled the study of veterans and says 80 per cent no longer had PTSD three years later. He believes the static state MDMA creates makes veterans relaxed and comfortable enough to face the dark memories of war and move on.

ROCK DOBLIN: When you remember something under the influence of MDMA with the reduced fear that the MDMA helps to facilitate, then when you reconsolidate the memory, you can develop new neural pathways and reconsolidate it without the fear attached to it.

CONOR DUFFY: Dr Doblin's researchers have tested this treatment on a range of others suffering PTSD, including victims of child sexual abuse.

ROCK DOBLIN: Our approach, our therapeutic approach works regardless of the cause of PTSD. It could be natural disaster, it could be childhood sexual abuse, it could be car accidents, it could be war-related.

CONOR DUFFY: They've even used MDMA and LSD to treat anxiety in cancer patients as they face death.

ROCK DOBLIN: We've done MDMA research with cancer patients with anxiety about end of life at Harvard Medical School, at McLean Hospital.

CONOR DUFFY: Now Dr Doblin is determined to take his drug research from America's oldest and most prestigious university, Harvard, all the way to Australia.

ROCK DOBLIN: We're very committed to having research start in Australia. We've committed $25,000 and pledged another $25,000 if another $75,000 is raised in Australia.

CONOR DUFFY: Dr Doblin's funding is going to Steve McDonald, who's pushing for a trial from his Byron Bay home.

STEVE MCDONALD: There's some good science now on the potential impact of MDMA-assisted therapy on PTSD and the first study in the US had an 80 per cent success rate, which is very high. PTSD is notoriously difficult to treat and notoriously persistent.

CONOR DUFFY: He's won the support of Melbourne psychologist Stephen Bright, but he also needs a psychiatrist on board to get regulatory approval.

STEPHEN BRIGHT, PSYCHOLOGIST: It's been a very difficult topic to broach. I'm not sure that any health organisation within Australia or any academic institution is currently willing to come on board because of the potential negative media associated with providing people with an illicit substance.

CONOR DUFFY: They've also taken it all the way to the chief of the Defence Force. Defence told 7.30 the numbers in the US trial are too small and there's no plans to be involved with such a study.

But back in the States, former Army sergeant Tony Macie, who is now applying to enter medical school, says veterans deserve every possible chance at turning their lives around.

TONY MACIE: We went off to war, we did everything we were asked, and, if there's something that can help, just because it has some stigmatism or negative stigmatism against it, I don't think that that is a reason.